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thunderbird is eating up all my disk space. My INBOX file in the imap folder is 89GB. Thunderbird is downloading the same emails over and over

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  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

sonjahinrichsen
sonjahinrichsen
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This is a follow up on a response from Christ1 

Hi Christ,

thank you for your answer

I have 2 domains, one dowloads via IMAP and the other via POP. I'm not sure whether Thunderbird is doing these endless downloads from both, but I know for sure that it's doing it with the account that downloads through IMAP. That folder is 89 GB and grows every time I open thunderbird. It's downloading thousands of messages all the time, and the next time I open it, it starts all over again. They do not show as duplicate messages in my inbox, though, not even as unread messages. So the synching seems to be working to some extent - only that thunderbird seems to download all messages from my server over and over again, and accummulate them all in my INBOX file inside the Imap folder. I called my server and they told me the messages on my account are 4GB right now - so at this point each message has to be stored in the inbox folder 22 times. As I said they are not showing 22 times in thunderbird though - only once. It's just that it somehow downlaods them into the file (which is located in the Thunderbird library) over and over again. I am pretty much out of disk space now. This problem has eaten up all of my free disks space. this problem started about 5 weeks ago, and I noticed it when thunderbird kept stalling and the computer seemed always busy with something - well it was constantly downloading thousands of emails - the same ones over and over.

I'm not sure how to set thunderbird up to automatically compact folders. First I need to stop this downloading problem though - then I can try and find a way to deflate that 89 GB file back to the 4 GB that it should be.

To me it seems like there might be some sort of corrupted file going on - basically it seems like Thunderbird simply doesn't remember that it has already downloaded all of these emails and does it aver again every time I open it. What can i do about this? Where is the corrupted file? Can I replace it with a new one somehow?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

Sonja Hinrichsen www.sonja-hinrichsen.com


On 2/28/16 12:38 AM, Mozilla Support Forum wrote: > Mozilla Support > thunderbird is eating up all my disk space. My INBOX file in the imap folder is 89GB. Thunderbird is downloading the same emails over and over > christ1 Feb 27, 2016, 4:38:55 PM > > Which of your accounts is the troubled one, i.e. the one causing the rapid growth of the Inbox size? What is the account type of that account - POP or IMAP? Are you deleting duplicate messages? If so, are you compacting folders in the process, or let Thunderbird automatically compact folders? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

This is a follow up on a response from Christ1 Hi Christ, thank you for your answer I have 2 domains, one dowloads via IMAP and the other via POP. I'm not sure whether Thunderbird is doing these endless downloads from both, but I know for sure that it's doing it with the account that downloads through IMAP. That folder is 89 GB and grows every time I open thunderbird. It's downloading thousands of messages all the time, and the next time I open it, it starts all over again. They do not show as duplicate messages in my inbox, though, not even as unread messages. So the synching seems to be working to some extent - only that thunderbird seems to download all messages from my server over and over again, and accummulate them all in my INBOX file inside the Imap folder. I called my server and they told me the messages on my account are 4GB right now - so at this point each message has to be stored in the inbox folder 22 times. As I said they are not showing 22 times in thunderbird though - only once. It's just that it somehow downlaods them into the file (which is located in the Thunderbird library) over and over again. I am pretty much out of disk space now. This problem has eaten up all of my free disks space. this problem started about 5 weeks ago, and I noticed it when thunderbird kept stalling and the computer seemed always busy with something - well it was constantly downloading thousands of emails - the same ones over and over. I'm not sure how to set thunderbird up to automatically compact folders. First I need to stop this downloading problem though - then I can try and find a way to deflate that 89 GB file back to the 4 GB that it should be. To me it seems like there might be some sort of corrupted file going on - basically it seems like Thunderbird simply doesn't remember that it has already downloaded all of these emails and does it aver again every time I open it. What can i do about this? Where is the corrupted file? Can I replace it with a new one somehow? I'd be grateful for any suggestions. Sonja Hinrichsen www.sonja-hinrichsen.com On 2/28/16 12:38 AM, Mozilla Support Forum wrote: > Mozilla Support > thunderbird is eating up all my disk space. My INBOX file in the imap folder is 89GB. Thunderbird is downloading the same emails over and over > christ1 Feb 27, 2016, 4:38:55 PM > > Which of your accounts is the troubled one, i.e. the one causing the rapid growth of the Inbox size? What is the account type of that account - POP or IMAP? Are you deleting duplicate messages? If so, are you compacting folders in the process, or let Thunderbird automatically compact folders? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

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Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
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I'll copy your posting above into https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1112115 because this needs to be continued in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1112115